Ally on the Dulles Airport Shuttle
I'm not sure exactly when "today" began or with it's going to end, however during the prior 24 hours or so we somehow managed to escape Reading and arrive at our first scheduled destination; Lucca, Italy. Over the prior 24 hours we have suffered a breakdown of all the basic functions of life which we have grown accustomed to. Health, language, electricity, hygene, nutrition, to name a few of the biggies.
On the bright side, we are here and it does seem to be very serene and beautiful which is exactly what we needed after barely surviving the indecipherable chaos of Rome, the total confusion of the train system and the general disregard for the enjoyment of our vacation from almost every other Italian we have encountered to this point. Most encouraging and impressive is the fact that Allyson and I managed to make it to our destination with only a handful of minor arguements, disagreements or general head shaking and disbelief about what the other was thinking or doing. I can honestly say that on only 2 or 3 occassions did I feel like reminding Allyson that our trip would have been easier if she hadn't packed 300 lbs (I mean kilograms) of luggage. I'm sure that there were more than 2 or 3 occasions where she wanted to throw me in front of the next oncoming train. I suppose that's the whole purpose of removing yourself from your comfort zone, disregarding everything that makes you happy and comfortable and then seeing if your relationship can survive. So far so good it seems. I simply cannot imagine any point of this trip becomeing more stressful than what we experienced today.
So, to recap some of the highlights and lowlights.
The flight was l o n g. Poor Ally was in agony, whether from her head cold which limited her ability to breath, to the freak lady she had sitting beside her who began the flight by getting in a seriously heated verbal debate with her seemingly senile and uncaring husband. Very weird, a 30 minute bitch fest at this poor old man, then once she ended that she wrapped herself up in blankets went to sleep and spent the next 7 hours elbowing Ally in the back while she was trying to sleep. The plane was filled with American retirees travelling to Rome to board a cruise ship back to the U.S. It was explained to me that it was a promotional deal of some kind, of course which resulted in 100 or so very non-sophisticated international travellers on our flight. Of course I'm not saying that Ally and I are seasoned world travellers by any means, but this was the Reading Rotary Club or maybe the annual 55+ Berks County Senior Social vacation. It was an odd group. Scattered amongst these people were some odd Asians, one of which was a middle aged asian woman getting up from her seat, stand in the aisle facing the rear of the plane and falling into some type of hypnotic trance that evidently transported her into a dimension where she did not know who she was, what she was doing on the airplane or where her seat was. She would proceed to pace the aisles in delirous confusion until finding her seat some 20 minutes or so later. This repeated 3-5 times. Then of course there was the lady who left the lavetory with the urine soaked seat protecting paper still attached to her ass. I wonder is anybody has told her yet?
The flight itself was uneventful, the odd people and Allysons misery were the primary focus of my attention. I felt so badly for Ally, but what can you do in that situation? As if she hadn't already had to deal with enough torture, from the sneezing, headache, hurting back, swelling feet and overall misery, upon descent into Rome we discovered that she only had one shoe. It may seem unlikely that a shoe can "walk" 3 seats over without having a foot inside of it, but it happened. After a bit of stress, a lot of searching on hands and knees (me on my hands and knees on the plane is of course the subject of someone else's travel journal I expect), the missing shoe was found. Directly under the incoherent, verbal punching bag husband of Ally's seat neighbor (the lady with the sharp elbows). Happy to be found upon arrival in Rome, the shoe was then jammed onto Allys foot. I say jammed because during the flight Ally's size 8.5's swelled up to size 12's.
It should be noted that nowhere in any of the travel guides i read did it say that in Italy our luggage would weigh twice as much as it did when we possessed it in the USA. This must be why we Americans refuse to use the metric system....because it makes your suitcase feel as though it is packed full of wet sand. Mid-day today Ally simply extended her hands and said "no more" in reference to carrying our suitcases. On our last train ride from Florence to Lucca I simply left them at the doors of the train in hopes that someone would steal them. The wheeled suitcase is a great invention, however the wheels really do not help when you need to lift the bag vertically 3 feet to board a train which has a door that is half an inch smaller than the width of your suitcase. Doing this all the while hurried Euro citizens are pushing you all over the place. For a comparable experience I suggest carring 2 bags of cement around Times Square on New Years Eve....In the rain.
All things considered Ally and I did really well I think. She felt horrible and probably had every reason to let her frustration out on me, in spite of the fact that there really wasn't anything I could have done to make the day much easier. It was torture for me to know how terrible she was feeling, yet never be able to give her any moment to relax, to take care of herself or simply stop the madness and take a break. Other than a few moments of wanting to pull my own hair out, or pretend our luggage had been stolen by street hustlers, I give myself a B grade for not going postal at some point. I think my true test was at the Rome train station where Ally and I attempted to get lunch. She gave me the task of simply getting her something to eat and drink, to which I picked up a tray and walked around some type of pseudo-buffet arrangement too dazed, confused and scared to actaully touch anything in fear that someone might slap my hand or speak to me in Italian which I am sure would have caused all of the blood vessels in my eyes to spontaneously burst. After 10 minutes of incoherent confusion I ordered 2 coffees and 2 sandwiches, was subsequently served 2 thimble sized expressos which tasted like they were filtered through a homeless mans underwear and of course the wrong sandwiches. While I was struggling to obtain food, Ally had to negotiate via sign language to retain the table which we had fortunately acquired. Upon returning to said table with what had to have been the saddest and sorriest lunch that Allyson had ever seen, I got one of those looks from her which told me without words that I must be a F-ing idiot if that's the best I could manage to acquire for lunch. That' pretty much was my low point, I sputtered off about how I had no ability to communicate at all, she told me to start drinking and I agreed, as it was the only sensible thing to do at that moment. Of course neither of us could execute the liquor order either, so we simply ate our dry sandwiches, swallowed the expresso/coffee/dirty panties coffee that I had so efficiently procured and then bought two bottles of wine and boarded the train.
The two lessons I learned from today are simply this:
1. Ally and I must really love each other to have survived the last 24 hours.
2. Just because someone tells you they speak English does not mean the understand the words that are spoken to them. In conclusion, here is the condensed version of every conversation I had with anybody since landing in Rome.
Me: "Excuse me, do you speak English"
Random Euro Citizen: (speaking to me in clear, perfect English) "Yes, I do"
Me: (responding with my question). "does this train go to Florence"
R.E.C. (Random Euro Citizen, now speaking in broken english): "Yes Florence, where are you going"
Me: "My name is not Florence, I am trying to go to Florence, does this train go there"
R.E.C. (now barely speaking English) "Where you go Florence?
Me: "I'm not Florence, I am trying to GO TO FLORENCE"......."nevermind"
That wraps up day one. I'm writing this while in the bathroom of our lovely B&B in Lucca. Things took a turn for the better when our eyes fell on our own personal bed and shower, so I am very positive that day 2 will be splendid. Ally is asleep in bed, hopefully purging her flu and getting back her vibrant, beautiful smile. Stay tuned.
Enjoy our photos of Day 1. It's not much, but it's a start.
Train Station Somewhere...Not sure where
Scary Italian Gelato Counter
Ally...Exhausted at the Bed & Breakfast after 24 hours of travel.
